Waiter and sales check



W. C. DILLINGHAM, DECD.

c. H. Dnuuaum. ADmNlsTRAToR. WAITER AND SALES CHECK.

1,356,050. APPLICATION FILED mugs. 1913. Patented 00h19 1920.

Number* I over 60e wrih:

mount h over; 60 write A rrwunf 11ers UNITED STA TEs PATENT oEEIcE.4 p'

WILLIAM C. DILLINGI-IAM, OF BAIRDSTOWN', CALIFORNIA; CHARLES H. DILLINGHAM ADMINISTRATOR OF SAID .WILLIAM C.- DILLINGHAM, DECEASED. J i

WAITER AND ysALEs CHECK.

Application led April V78,

To all whom t may concern:

Be it known that I, WiLLTAM C. DILLING- HAM, a citizen of the United States, residing at `Bairdstown, in the county of `Los Angeles and State of California, have invented a new and useful Waiter and Sales Check, of which the following is av specification. y

This invention is designed for the use, convenience and safety of7 his agentsrin keeping check and account of sales and may be used in restaurants, barber shops, stores Vand other places of business wherever the conditions to which it is fitted y exist. c f

rllhat is to say, takingfor example Va restaurant, it is customary in many such places to have a fixed minimum charge and to make all other charges multiples thereof, there being, for instance, in some restaurants, no charge that is not five cents or some multiple thereof, and it is` customary in some places to furnisheach waiter with a bundle or pad of checks fastenedtogether at one end and adaptedto be torn ofl in secn th section carrying inscriptions of the amounts of possible charges. as, 5, l0, l5, etc., cents. It yisv,fou1`1d,"however, that considerable width, say a quarter of an inch lengthwise of the check, more or less, should be allowed to each section or the sections would be inconvenient ytohandle and too diflicult to tear off accurately, and it is therefore pertinent that when many of such charge indicating marks are arranged ina column on the check strip with onecharge on each section thatthe length of the strip will be excessive and the pad will be incony venient to carry. f p

It is well known that in a greatpnumber of restaurants, barber shops and other places dealing in numerous smallfservices, that av` greatmajority ofthe chargesl for any one tions, each service does not much exceed fty cents and thatif a check strip ismade to read as high as sixty vcentsit will'meet the requirement of a very large proportion of the transactions whichl are liable to occur; but that the charges forming exceptions to this general Specification of Letters Patent.

a proprietor and equal to one dollar.

1913. s'erai Nol 764,273.

item ofcharge, were made to cover transactions extending up to one dollar that the strip must necessarily exceed live inches in length, and it is found in kpractice that another inch is necessary in order to give room for a suitable heading and for the stub, and it is found that a pad six inches in length affords a very practical convenient size to handle but'it is evident Vthat check no provision is made for any amount An object of this invention isto avoid these difficulties and to provide a check which is adapted within itself to indicate any of the charges rfrom the minimum to any multiple thereof, within a desirable maximum, as the sixty cents just suggested, so that the record is made and information given by `simply tearingof the appropriate portion of the check and delivering it to e customer; and it is an objectto soconstruct saidk check that it is automatically protected frombeing lowered by the cus,- tomer or` the `cashier and so `that it affords means whereby theycanbe apprised ofl any charge and the waiter a memorandumb'y which he can protect his own accounts kitchen. This 'and more particularly set forth joined detailed'description. 1 c

Patented oct. 19, 1920.

if the check constructed i quarter inch wide foreach can retain on his stub with the cashier and the With such a he accompanying drawings, illustratek f the invention Figurel is a View of a pad of checks manf ufactured and constructedfin accordancer` 4 Fig. 3 is a view of saidvpad after another charge on the strip.

of'said checks has beenl used to indicate acharge greaterthan thefmaximum printed Fig. 4t is a view of the customersbill after its detachment from the pad in Fig. 2. Fig. 5 is a view of the customers bill after its detachment from the pad shown in 'lie pads are formed of strips y, y', y and so on, and each strip is composed of a waiter and sales stub a, to which a fastener which may be an ordinary staple Z) is applied for the purpose of fastening the bundle of strips together, a sectional body c and a cashiers tab CZ. The sectional body c is interposed between the stub a and the tab CZ and is made integral therewith but is partially separated, and is easily separable therefrom by scores e, f which may be lines of perforations, and the stub a and tab Z are provided with and bear duplicate identification marks g or characters, so that when the body portion c is torn at the score e from the stub a, it and tab cZ thereon, may answer the purpose of a check to be delivered to the purchaser and by him to the cashier, and the identification marks g serve to identify the check thus delivered with the service for which it was given.

Said body c is divisible into a clerks memorandum c and a customers bill c and is provided with scores Zt practically separating said inemorancum and bill into a plurality of sections Z, and the sections are provided with charge indicating marks or characters y' respectively which, in the instance shown, consists in the characters 5, l0, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55 and 60, each of which occurs only once upon the check so that if the charge is any amount from five cents to sixty cents, with the uniform difference of live cents between any two successive charge characters, the charge may be indicated on the check by simply tearing at such a score b as to leave at the torn end of the detached portion, which con stitutes the customers bill the character designating the appropriate charge, see Fig. 4l. Thus the body is provided with a single column of numbers and is designed to be severed transversely between any two adjacent numbers into a memorandum and a bill, the numbers on the memorandum increasing from the stub toward the line of severance and the numbers on the bill decreasing from the tab toward said line of severance. On the stub and tab there are arranged charge bordered spaces c which preferably comprise a space Z and an over amount space m which are appropriately marked with designating marks a and 0 to indicate their uses. The tab also carries the marks p to indicate the place of the payment.

1n practical use when only one customer is served and the charge does not exceed sixty cents the waiter or salesman simply number served i detaches from his pad the cashier7s tab and so much of the body c as is necessary to leave at the end thereof the section bearing the charge character j which designates the amount of the charge and when he has given the same to the person served his further attention thereto is not needed until the time of final settlement at which time the largest amount attached to the pad stub indicates within five cents the charge made and indicated on the torn end of the detached portion of the body c, but if more than one person is served, the attendant will apply in both the number served7 spaces Z character indicating such number served. It is seen that by arranging the minimum charge character nearest to the stub and farthest away from the tab, and the other charge characters in a single column with and successively from the minimum charge character, so that the maximum charge character is farthest away from the stub and nearest to the tab, the charge character ,7' on the end section of the customers bill is automatically protected from being lowered, as by tearing off this section which indicates the amount to be paid, the bill will be raised instead of lowered. 1f the amount of the charge is in excess of the highest charge number found in the Abody c the attendant will apply in the over amount space m, characters as at g indicating the charge, see Fig. 3. y

Zhen an over amount check is thus given by the waiter there is left on his stub the clerks memorandum check c so that if he by chance neglects to write on his stub the amount of the over amount check he will still have a reminder that will direct him to the cashier where he can nd and then fill in on his stub the amount.

I claim:

A waiter and sales check comprising a strip composed of three main sections; namely, a stub provided with identifying characters thereon, a tab having identifying characters in duplicate of the characters on the stub, and an intermediate body section; a transverse score between the stub and the intermediate body section; another transverse score between the intermediate body section and the tab; a plurality of transverse scores spaced predetermined distances apart from said other scores and from one another upon said intermediate body sect-ion; each of the scores being adapted to make the strip easily separable at the score; a charge number between each two scores', each charge number occurring only once upon the check, the minimum charge number being arranged nearest to the stub and farthest away from the tab, the other charge numbers being arranged in a single column with and successively from the minimum charge number,

the tab, the difference in charge number is stub and nearest to value between any two successive charge numbers being uniform and the stub and the tab each having a bordered space thereon for registering therewithin any amoun maximum charge numbe diate body section, said t in excess of the r upon the intermebordered spaces beingV properly marked in order to indicate 10 their purpose.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand at os Angeles, California, this 22dday of April, 1913.

WILLIAM C. DILLINGHAM.

In presence of Y JAMES R. TowNsENn,

ROBERT A. STEPS. 

